The penalty points system in Spain was introduced in July, 2016, not only to penalise poor driving, but also to award those who drive safer.
The system is the opposite to that of the UK, in so much as if you commit an offence you will be given points on your licence, in Spain you are given an allocation which are then taken away in the event of committing an infraction. Lose all your points and the licence is withdrawn.
On the other hand, good driving over a period of time will result in you being given more points as a reward, and points can also be recovered through educational courses.
If you have a Spanish driving licence you can check how many points you have via their secure website.
If you visit the traffic department´s official website, www.dgt.es, you will find all of the information you need, but the majority of it is only available in Spanish. Not a problem if you have some command of the language, but it might be complicated if you´re only just learning. You could use an online translator such as Google to help you, but we will guide you through the process here.
When you reach the website you will see in the middle column, under the title “Trámites”, a line which says, “¿Cuantos puntos tengo?”
Click on this line and a new page will open with a list of articles offering lots of advice about the system, including how to recover points, but it is the first option we are interested in, “Consulta de Puntos”.
Click on that link and you will be taken to a secure portal where you will be able to access the information, but before you do, the system needs verification of your identity, in order to protect your data.
You are given three option, access with “Cl@ve”, a form of secure digital key, through “Certificado”, another form of secure digital signature, and the third, most likely option you will want, “Consulta Saldo de Puntos (con usuario y contraseña)”, consult your points with a user name and password.
If you have either of the digital keys you are probably already more advanced, and should be able to access the system yourself, so we are going to explain how to use the third option.
Click on the line which says, “Consulta de Puntos Con Usuario y Contraseña”. Another page will now open. The top section is asking you to submit your user name and password, but as we are assuming you don´t have this yet, you need you need to register first.
You only need to copy the secure captcha code (odd looking string of letters and numbers) into the relevant box, then press the big yellow button at the bottom.
A new page appears which is asking again for your NIE, this time you must submit it, and for the date of issue of your driving licence. This date is the original issue date of your licence to drive, not necessarily the issue date of your current renewal. Complete both these boxes and click “Siguente”, for next. Because this is secure information we cannot show you an example, but it is only a couple of pieces of information you need to know. The system will check if the information corresponds to what they have on file.
Assuming everything is correct, a new page appears which will be asked to submit your email address, which you must do twice to confirm it is correct. Once you have done this, click “Enviar” to submit the information.
Now, you need to check your email for the next stage. You should receive an email with the subject, “Confirmación de acceso Permiso por Puntos de la DGT”. This email will contain a link which you can click to confirm that the email address you associated with your information is correct.
Once you have clicked the link you will get another entitled, “Clave de acceso Permiso por Puntos de la DGT”. This email will contain a temporary password. You must now go back to the website and access using your secure user name and generated password, which you must change the first time you access the site.
Assuming everything has gone to plan, you will now have access to the secure site, which you can check at any time.
We hope you don´t need it, but here is a link to some of the ways you can lose points.
